Five million votes separated Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the popular
vote during the 2012 election. It would be a stretch to call the 2012
presidential election a particularly close one with a margin that large. But because of the
peculiarities of the Electoral College, a shift in just three hundred
thousand votes in four states would have made Romney, rather than Obama,
the president. Similarly John Kerry would have defeated George Bush in
the Electoral College with a shift of fewer than a hundred thousand
votes in Ohio.

Think about that when you try to say I am just being a whiner.

The Electoral College is anti-democratic and that is not a good thing in a nation which has presented itself as having free and fair elections to the point of fighting wars based on that lie.

See also, Eric Black's series in the Minn Post (not in any particular order):

It cannot be successfully questioned that the State governments, unless
restrained by their own Constitutions, have the power to regulate or
prohibit associations and meetings of the people, except in the case of
peaceable assemblies to perform the duties or exercise the privileges of
citizens of the United States; and have also the power to control and
regulate the organization, drilling, and parading of military bodies and
associations, except when such bodies or associations are *268
authorized by the militia laws of the United States. The exercise of
this power by the States is necessary to the public peace, safety and
good order. To deny the power would be to deny the right of the State to
disperse assemblages organized for sedition and treason, and the right
to suppress armed mobs bent on riot and rapine.

Presser needs to be brought back into the "Second Amendment Jurisprudence", although it seems to boggle the mind that anyone could claim an armed assembly to somehow fit within the definition of "peaceably assemble".

We can go a bit further to the claim about one belonging to an "unorganised militia" leading to Second Amendment rights, but Presser made it clear that neither Presser nor the Lehr und Wehr Verein "had no license from the governor of Illinois to drill or parade as a
part of the militia of the state, and was not a part of the regular
organized militia of the state, nor a part of troops of the United
States, and had no organization under the militia law of the United
States."

Presser made it clear that:

The right voluntarily to associate together as a military company or
organization, or to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent
of, an act of congress or law of the state authorizing the same, is not
an attribute of national citizenship. Military organization and military
drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control
of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right
independent of law. Under our political system they are subject to the
regulation and control of the state and federal governments, acting in
due regard to their respective prerogatives and powers. The constitution
and laws of the United States will be searched in vain for any support
to the view that these rights are privileges and immunities of citizens
of the United States independent of some specific legislation on the
subject.

We can also get into the historic events which led to the adoption of the Constitution, one of which was Shays' Rebellion, along with the text of the Constitution to see that somehow trying to turn the "well-regulated militia" into a mob, which the insurrection theory does, is an absurdity.

The right needs to abandon its absurd interpretation of the Second Amendment, in particular that it somehow gives licence to rebellion.

Even more importantly, it needs to see where this absurdity has taken us. Time for this shit to stop.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

The GOP's continuing silence on Charlottesville is defeaning. The President made a false equivalency argument that both the left AND right operate with violence and therefore the blame for some guy driving his car into a crows was shared. However, I don’t recall the last time a leftist blew up an abortion center, killed a doctor performing legal services, knifed people standing up for teenage girls or blew up a federal building (or tried).

Claims of left wing accountability for what happened in Charlotte are absurd. The left (improperly) attempts to squelch free speech, and I don’t support it, but they clearly are allowed to try and clearly are ALLOWED to boycott (like it or not). No one, though, is allowed to engage in premeditated acts of terrorism and intimidation. The left is not immune from engaging in violence, but it is rare compared to right-wing violence. The GOP has falsely tried to claim the primary problem is a lack of civility on both sides, violence on both sides. That is bullcrap, the primary problem is that the GOP, and more importantly conservatives has used dog whistle terminology to appeal to racism since the time of Reagan (and even before that if we include the writing of William F. Buckley - grandfather of modern conservatism).

Go read that again, 74% of ALL terrorism in the US over the past 10 years has been by right-wing extremists, 2% by left wing. That’s not equal, that’s not “Blackshirts”, it’s not left wing tyranny. It’s right-wing violence.

That's right, Right-Wing terrorism is 37 times more common that left-wing terrorism, and more than THREE times more common that Islamic terrorism. The President cajoled President Obama for not calling it "Islamic terrorism" but Trump is SILENT on calling it right-wing terrorism.

Bluntly, there is no equivalency at all and the GOP has no excuse for remaining silent on this issue. The only reason they are silent or have been, is that appealing to racism works for them to help win elections. They use those same dog whistles when they bring up "election fraud", blacks and Hispanics are voting twice, that's the only reason the GOP loses elections. They are now seeing the fruits of their cowardice. When you tell whackos that they should be afraid of their government and have rights to "defend themselves" from thugs, you have folks walking around with semi-auto rifles, having illegally invaded a US Government facility, staring down the ATF and FBI. The GOP fails to call that out as crazy, but more importantly, it continues to bring up these dog whistles (like voter fraud) - and so we get right-wing terrorism like some crazy a$#ole driving a car into protesters. No left-winger did that, no left-winger forced anyone to do that. This wasn't retaliation, it was a pre-meditated act by a racist, fascistic Nazi and the GOP owns that lock, stock and barrel, there is no equal on the left.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

It sort of makes sense since nobody is taking credit for a leak. It would have to be these crafty little critters from Mézières' and Christin's (and now Luc Besson) Valérian et Laureline. What else could so easily get away with stealing documents and then leaking them.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

It was also influential that the Clinton camp (and pretty much everybody) was pointing out that Trump would never win. I can remember at least three predictions of a Clinton landslide. Well, Clinton did get more popular votes, but the prediction of her winning was premature. I can say that most of the factors in my deciding to bolt from the Democratic party was due to their actions, not "Russian interference" of any sort. I think that goes for most people who voted for Third Parties.

Or just plain didn't vote.

Any real discussion of the election should try to address the real issues that led to Trump being President. Which would also include Clintonite overconfidence they would win (which they did as far as the popular vote goes, but the Electoral College needs to go).

Turning up the heat on right wing lies

Opinions

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

― Isaac Asimov, "A Cult of Ignorance," Newsweek (Jan. 1980)

We stand with PP

past wisdom

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."Billy Graham - Parade (1 February 1981)

An astute observation from Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

Penigma is pro-feminism, pro-thought

Ignorance is a choice

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